


You will find me right where I fell

by JoCarthage



Category: Batman - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, M/M, Racebending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 09:00:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6417277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Gamgee is out picking mushrooms right after the breaking of the Fellowship and comes across a great house, with a back door answered by a man named Alfred and rooms full of technology and secrets he'd never imagined. At the same time, Jason Todd runs into the woods around Bruce Mansion, escaping an argument he just can't seem to win with Bruce, and finds a small man tending a smaller fire, dressed like something out of a Renaissance Faire. How these men get back to their homes might be less important than who they'll be when they get there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You will find me right where I fell

**Author's Note:**

> I had the day off today for Caeser Chavez day and this was the last dream I had before waking up late, so that's what this is. I love comments, so please share if you think I should keep on past this first chapter. More notes at the bottom. 
> 
> PS: The tense shifts are by chapter and part of the story.

Sam Gamgee walks away from the campfire he built and the hobbit he has dedicated these long months to protecting to find some mushrooms. The woods here are coiling-dark and full of writhing roots and undisturbed grottos. He keeps his eyes on the ground, refusing to be the kind of afraid that would make him return to his hungry friend without something to fill their sunken bellies. 

Root, leaf, branch, mast; no mushrooms. Scurrying sound, waft of dank air but no brisk, clearing wind behind it; no mushrooms. Then—some white-tops! He rushes to them, the corner of his cloak forming a basket with the help of his hands but not intercession of his brain as he kneels in the must and crunch of decayed and undecaying leaves. He pulls them up, examines them, and there they are, just regular white-tops. He feels a shiver, a fear that this too might be a poison hidden in a familiar face, but there is no ring to corrupt the hearts of these mushrooms, so he gathers them all.

He stands, over-walked knees cracking, and catches sight of another stand of mushrooms, just a little farther away from the twinkle of the fire with his friend beside it. He starts to hum himself a tune and looks into the basket of his cloak: enough to stop their bellies squirming, but with a few more, they could be full, really full. He glances back, marks the big tree beside him coming and going, and hurries through the bushes to the mushrooms.

They are white-tops too, just big enough to eat, but in a huge colony, large enough he follows their path on his knees, picking and plucking and humming as the wetness of the dying leaves soaks through his breaches. When he stands, the folds of his cloak are finally full. The air is still dank, but his stomach is awake, alert to the upcoming meal. Sam Gamgee turns to go, back to the marked tree from which he could see his fire, back to prep and cook and feed his friend, clean up and then go to sleep, warm and full for the first time he could rightly recall—when he sees a great shape, just to the other side of this copse of woods. It has straight lines, and though he freezes, it doesn’t move. It looks like—a great big house.

He walks towards it, hands fisting and bunching the carefully-gathered folds of his cloak, as the grey-stone house comes into view, away over acres of enough green grass to hide all Hobbiton and Bree beside. He steps onto that grass, and keeps walking,towards the great house.

—

_Bruce Wayne is a fucking asshole!_ Jason Todd shouted in his head as he shoved the last of his supplies into the black bug-out bag yanked from under his bed. He’d had one too many practices, one to many lectures, and one too many pitying looks from Alfred as he struggled to explain to Bruce that he was 21 now, old enough to make his own fucking decisions, and if he didn’t want to go to college, he wasn’t fucking going to.

As he packed, he knew what the next days held. Measured, even words from Bruce; angry, flying ones from him; tea to break up the fight. More talking; maybe a practice session or two where the punching bag was the only thing between them keeping Bruce’s perfect, stupid face intact; lunch to breakup the fight. Researching the criminals with longer careers than most Prosecutors would ever see; more talking; more fighting; fitful sleep, in his fucking bed, alone, as always. _Fuck!_ He’d thought to himself. He’d thought he’d broken himself of this, this thing with him and Bruce that existed, had always existed, only in his fucked-up head. He knew it was Daddy issues—they both had Daddy issues, in spades and suits and—now all he could think of was cards and the fucking Joker— _Fuck!_

He punched his knee and split his dry knuckle, trying to control his breathing, trying not to let the hot wetness promised by the ache in his forehead and the pressure behind his eyes spill out into the cold air. He tried to go to that black, cool place in his head—what until recently he’d called his Bat Cave but was now going to get a new, cooler name—and looked over what he had packed:

  * jerky
  * a gallon of water
  * a water filter
  * trail mix
  * ho-hos
  * a bag of apples
  * string-cheese
  * a Mountain Dew, half-empty



There were jeans and knives and a magazine and wet wipes for his hands still on the bed, waiting to be packed. He’d slept rough before and he knew he might have a few nights of that before he could get his own thing going. He thought about it, then stood, walked on the soft pads of his feet as he'd been taught, breath finally under control, to his bathroom and got the ‘fro pick, the hair wash he knew Alfred drove across town to get but that was the only thing that kept his kinks out of dreads and in some kind of order, and the anti-ashiness lotion he knew came from the same store. 

_Damn_ , the silver lotion tube was almost empty and he could feel blood seeping from his broken knuckle. Back in his room, as he shoved his clothes supplies into his bag, Jason imagined the limo pulling up, parking in the alley between the barber shop and the store-front church, and Alfred stepping out in his tux-thing, walking over the cracked pavement the city never seemed to fix, past the only newstands that sold the Gotham Reporter, and into the corner shop with the bird in the wire cage and the winning lotto numbers on the wall. 

He’d always loved that image, Alfred bending down, picking through the bent-cornered boxes, finding just the brand he’d asked for, gathering them in his manicured hands, and walking to the counter. He would have to wait in line, there was always a line, waiting for people to use the Western Union kiosk or get their numbers for the day or ask for the Newports in the back. Then he’d buy ‘fro pick, the lotion, the shampoo and conditioner with his black Amex, go back to his limo, and trek back across town, cross that invisible line over which magically the sidewalks always got fixed and the street got cleaned and the churches were these huge things, set back from the street and the communities they were supposed to help by massive, well-tended lawns.

Jason would go to that corner store first thing to get more lotion since no kitchen was going to hire him with bloody knuckles. It would take a few days walking to keep out of sight of the cameras that he knew Bruce would try to find him with. That thought kicked his heart rate back up, but his hands were sure this time as he checked the straps of his bag. He pulled on his darkest hoodie, then lifted his mattress off the boxspring and reached to the very back corner, where he’d hidden some cash.

He looked at the window and thought of climbing down; he was pretty sure he could do it, gallon of water in his backpack and all. But if he went down the stairs, he might be able to nod to Alfred on the way out, keep him from worrying, which he kind of wanted to do. So he took the stairs at a bound, bracing his hands on the banister as he leapt from landing to landing, soft soles and well-trained knees eating all the sound the soft carpets didn’t muffle. He made it to the front door with no one seeing—Bruce was probably sulking in the real Bat Cave, throwing himself into work, not eating—no. No, no, no. Bruce was no longer his problem, Jason was getting the fuck out of here before he did something stupid like share his jerky with that self-punishing asshole.

He opened the front door, and expected Alfred to hear it, to appear from a side room and wave him off or—Jason realized a tiny, shitty part of his head had been begging for this from the universe since he’d run upstairs in the first place—convince him to stay. But Alfred didn’t come, so Jason pushed the door open and took the front steps at a jump, stumbling and running to the trees as fast as he could. He knew there were cameras, that this was wide open high-contrast ground, that fucking Bruce and his fucking machines could catch him anytime, make him have more calm, sensible, insufferable conversations about his future in Bruce’s dead parents’ living room. If Bruce was sulking, he probably wasn’t obsessively watching security tape ( _yet_ said a tiny, knowing voice in Jason’s head that he shut the fuck down) and Jason could be far, far away by the time he did.

So Jason Todd ran, flat out across the lawns, into the forest that blocked view of the highway. Ran until the trees cut out all the urban ambient light, brushing past a tree with a strange marking on it, ran until leaves smacked him in the face and he tripped on a huge, writhing root. He fell, water bottle sloshing his backpack up his back and knees digging into the rich, rotting earth under the dead leaves. He could feel it soaking through, getting to his run-clammy skin. He had a tight fluttered in his chest that said he'd run just too far for his daily cardio to keep up with, and that threatening pressure behind his eyes back again. He blinked and wetness in them made the woods shimmer, but then he saw it wasn’t whatever was in his eyes, it was—a fire? In Wayne’s woods?

He stood, quiet-footed now, and walked towards the light. The fire wasn’t alone in the tiny clearing—there was a child beside it. Or a man, but a, little person? Wearing some kind of Ren Faire shit, long cloak and—was that a sword? A little sword, but it looked sharp. The manias huddled, hands around his stomach and rockling slightly, staring into the fire. There wasn’t a tent or a sleeping bag near him, which was dumb since those were like $35 each and made sleeping rough livable. What was his problem?

Jason stood at the edge of the clearing, and knowing the man couldn’t hear him, looked his fill. He wasn’t shaped like the little people who Jason had met at the group home, but not shaped like an average adult either. His face so drawn and sad it was tough look at it. Jason thought about his supplies and the corner shop, and the time he had until dawn when he could start walking without getting picked up by cops, and stepped forward, onto a branch so the man looked up at him with huge blue eyes.

—

Sam Gamgee didn't walk to the front door; he may not be the brightest hobbit on this trip, but the Gaffer’s son is no idiot. He headed towards the back, where the servants-quarters and the kitchen are bound to be. One thing he learned in traveling so far from home, through hills and terrible mines and great, ugly woods, is that elves and men and whatever Bjorn was all disliked the dirty work of gardening and cooking and cleaning as much as most Hobbits did. No matter the race, there were always people who did the real work of these great places and lived in servants quarters. 

(Sam’d had a solid chat with a boy in charge of lacing Elrond’s fancy boots, and another with a girl tasked with combing Galadriel’s hair. If someone were to paint a picture of those high courts, they still wouldn’t put the servants in it, since them who can pay for portraits like to make themselves the focus of them. But if somehow some painter had showed the truth? There would be dozens of lads and lasses and old men and women, cutting the beef and sopping the floors and stacking the fine dishes.)

So Sam had hope that, no matter the shape or size or color of the folks that lived in this great place, the folks who worked the kitchen could understand where he was coming from and trade him some salt for these fine mushrooms. If he was lucky, maybe they would share some advice about how to get out of these great, awful woods.

The door to the back was strangely tattered, like the servants here didn’t keep their own places as fine as they did their masters. He’d met folks like that before, and he never quite understood it. They had access to the cleaning tools and the repairing rigs, why not use them on their own spaces as much as their owners’? But he kept on, clambering over a small stone wall dividing wide, perfectly square flagstones. These too were covered with dirt and moss. Maybe if they had some time here, he could trade cleaning these up for a new knife—his had a big knick in it from finding a bone in a place bones wouldn’t have been, if it had been a normal squirrel he’d been prepping.

He stepped up to the door and then his guts went cold as river ice—up above it, there was a red eye glaring at him. He’d heard of this, from the others, who’d seen Sauron’s gaze, and this one’s red burnt his eyes and he had to look to the side. He saw it was set in a mostly black orb attached the the wall, the red thing moving inside it, making a sound like a tiny sword going in and out of a sheath. He thought about running away, back to the woods, to the tree with the mark on it, to the fire with his friend, but then his hand clenched on his elf-made cloak, he tucked his tongue behind his teeth and clenched them down hard. He knocked on the door.

So fast he must have been hiding right inside the door, a tall, white-haired human yanked it open. He was wearing close-fitted clothes that hung in straight lines, black and so white he must have bought the cloth from an elf. As Sam looked up—and up (and up)—he wondered if all people dressed to match their homes, the elves with their curling cloaks and roofs, hobbits with their round doors and buttons, and, apparently, men, with their houses as straight as horizons and pants stiff around their legs.

“How may I help you?” The man intoned, his accent different than any Sam had heard before. His too-clean hands hung at his sides and he didn’t carry a torch, though it was dark in the house behind him. Sam had been right—it was the door to the kitchen, but a kitchen bigger than even the one in Rivendell. It was dark in the room behind the man but for a strangely bright light over one small flame with a tea kettle on it. There were pots and sinks and bowls and what looked like a whole great wall of fine, white plates. It looked as if it had been unused for years if he had to guess. His heart sank: if the people of this place had left to live elsewhere, or so little valued cooking that they didn't see fit use this great kitchen, his mushrooms wouldn’t be much use in trade. But he thought of Mister Frodo and bullied on the best he could.

“Sorry to bother you so late, I was picking mushrooms in yonder wood and saw your great big house. I thought I might trade you some of these fine mushrooms,” and he opened up his cloak so they shone in the dim light coming through the door, “in exchange for a peck of salt or maybe some pepper? I’m sorry if I’m disturbing your dinner service, I’m happy to wait,” he said, in dimming hopes that perhaps there was a second, bigger kitchen that he couldn’t see. He couldn’t understand why someone wouldn't use those lovely pots if they had the chance.

The man’s eyes squinted almost closed, his white hair moving on his head like a living thing as he furrowed his brow: “You wish to trade me mushrooms for salt?” he asked, voice flat.

Sam considered slowing down his speech; this human didn’t seem to follow him. “Yes,” he said, giving the word room to breathe.

“I—“ the man started, leaning forward, into Sam’s space. Then he stopped, straightened up and said: “Where did you come from?”

Sam realized his error: “Oh, you've never met a hobbit before. It can be a big surprise and that’s no lie. We’re from Hobbiton, down south past the great river and the mountains.” He wondered ifhe should mention his friend in the Rangers or those who lived great places of the Elves, but he reconsidered. If this place was so far away because its masters chose not to be involved in the trials of the world, they might not appreciate someone bringing those pains to their door, even a person like him.

“We?” the man asked, a slight smile tracing his face. Sam shook his head, frustrated that he couldn’t make himself understood.

“My friend and I, we’re traveling to—“ and here he took a breath. He realized too late he hadn’t thought of an easy lie, to cover this part, since no one they met ever got as far as to asking them, just usually trussing them up like midwinter turkeys and flailing their swords around. “We’re traveling to visit friends, in the north,” then in a hurried correction, “To the south of Mordor.”

“Mordo—“ the man started, and then stopped again. He seemed to keep having trouble talking, and Sam wondered how often they got visitors here.

“I think this is something for Master Wayne to decipher,” he says, but Sam took a step back.

“Oh no, no sir, you needn’t trouble your master on my account. If you haven’t any salt, that’s just fine, these mushrooms will cook up fine in their own juices. I’ll just take my leave—“

Sam’s ankles hit the low wall and he stumbles, hands keeping a tight hold on his cloak so the mushrooms didn’t spill, and his knees were stiff, and then he was falling backwards, onto those perfectly square, dirty-grey flagstones. He hit his shoulders first, and then thought that would be the worst of it, but then his head flew back and the last thing he saw was a giant bat blacking out the stars.

—

“Hello,” Jason says, and the man startles, like he hadn’t expected him to talk. He steps forward into the light and the man stands, his sword in his hand. Jason has his knife open in his pocket and has done ever since he saw the fire, but this is habit, not intent.

“Hey, hey, no need, I was just passing through here saw your fire. I thought—maybe you’re hungry? Yeah?” the guy’s sword is drooping, he looks so tired, and so Jason takes a chance, takes his hand out of his hoodie and slings his backpack around to his front, unzipping it and pulling out the packet of jerky. He opens it, the plastic crackle loud in the clearing and weirdly shiny in the dull light of the fire. He holds it out, hoping the guy will put down the sword to grab it, but no, he just uses his other hand. He pulls out a piece, wincing at the rattle of the wrapper, and shoves it in his mouth. His eyes close, his sword’s tip touches the ground and Jason sighes, shifting his weight back.

“Hey, I’m Jason,” and just like that, awareness fills the man’s face. He steps back, lays the sword on the other side of the fire, wipes his hand on his weird, green-brown cloak-thing and holds it out.

“I’m Tom Underhill, of Hobbiton,” when he goes in for the hand shake, the man’s hand goes past Jason’s palm and to his wrist, gripping like Bruce did sometimes when he was helping Jason up after a fall. But this man’s hand isn’t as warm or as tight, and it didn’t make anything flutter in Jason’s stomach. It is just a hand, newly calloused and much smaller than any adult’s Jason has shaken.

“Hobbiton, huh? Like in the book?” Jason asks, and Underhill’s eyes go big for a moment before narrowing

“I’m not sure what book you’re referring to?” he asks, but he isn't making eye-contact with Jason’s face, no, he is making solid eye-contact with his packet of jerky. Jason holds it out, and the man takes another grateful handful.

“Hey, I ran the whole way here, you mind if we sit?” Jason asks. Underhill looks startled again, and then nods. He sweeps his cloak off his shoulders and puts it on the ground, like that is a thing that people just do. Jason pulls out the pack of string cheese—since it will be the first thing to go bad—and offers one to Underhill. He takes it with a small smile, but then makes a huge face when he bites into it without taking the wrapper off.

Jason’s eyebrows duck down, but he tries to keep his voice neutral: “Yeah, these confused me too, when I first saw them,” Jason say, and holds up his stick, unwrapping it slowly so Underhill can see. He nodds, peeling plastic out of the tooth marks. _Where did this dude come from, that he doesn’t know about cheese sticks?_ Jason wonders.

After his fourth string cheese stick, Underhill slows down, and asks again: “You mentioned a book—which one were you thinking of?”  
  
Jason closes his eyes, pulling up the red and black covers. “ _The High Lord of the Rings_ , right? It’s like a trilogy, _The Fellowship of the Ring’s Fall, The Two Conquered Towers, The Death of the Last King?_ It’s about this group of people, from all over this mythical world, trying to return a magic ring to a great ruler. They hit trouble on the road, so the ruler sends his best servants, these huge mixed-race warriors, and they help them get the ring back to him?”  
  
Jason sits back, bracing his arms on the edge of the cloak, remembering the book. “It’s mostly a sad book, but it’s long so it lets you get away, if you need to get away from where you are for a while. You start out reading it and you think it’s going to be about these two best friends from Hobbiton, like you were saying. They’re trying to get to the ring to Mordor, but an evil wizard tricked them into thinking they need to destroy it these, not give it back, so they fight off the ruler’s servants the first time they come to help get it back. It goes on for a long time, but if you’re town is named after it, you probably already know all this.”  
  
It might have been the fickle light of the fire, but Underhill looks pale, like he was going to retch.

“Who wrote this book, I mean, do you know who wrote it?” he asks, voice higher than it had been before, reedy like an oboe.  
  
Jason grins, digging into the bag for the ho-hos, peeling open the packaging and offering one to Underhill. But he waves him off, eyes blue as distant lakes firmly focused on Jason own brown eyes now. He takes a bite of his chemical-baked goodness and answers.

“I mean, the books themselves are written by J.R.R. Tolkien, so he’s the author. But in the books, it’s kind of a story-within-a-story thing. So, in the world, one of the characters wrote it.”  
  
Underhill leans forward, eyes so intense that Jason has to look away, look at the remains of charred-out, ember-filled logs: “And what was this person’s name, who wrote the story, in this book with Hobbiton in it?”

Jason rolled his lips under, trying to remember. It comes to him, in the voice of one of his better foster-parents. “The character’s name was Gollum.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm going to get some details wrong, playing in fandoms with such intricate mythologies and by race-bending Jason Todd. I've read the Lord of the Rings a bunch of times, so hopefully I'm getting that mostly right, but nearly all of what I know about Batman came from Batman Beyond and the movies. More seriously than fandom wank, I know it is possible I will say something hurtful while I'm trying to write Jason Todd as a 21 year old African American bi man, so let me know how I can do better. I just got tired of only writing white men in love, so I'm trying not to do that anymore, but that means I can always get characterizations wrong.
> 
> I hope you like it and please, please, please comment if you think I should keep going!
> 
> PS: The title is from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWmFUSaKuSg


End file.
